Christmas Traditions

I love Christmas time.  And I especially love spending Christmas with my family.  Here is our family doing some of our Christmas traditions.

Our WalMart gift exchange.  I think we had like $3.37 this year to try to buy a simple gift for someone else.

Adam checks out his new rattle toy.  Thanks Zach!

Of course, there was the famous Griggs "All Night" sale.  We always stop and play cards while we wait for the next auction.  I think it's fun.  And I was able to get a porch glider (now I just need a porch).

We got to play a lot of games together.  If you haven't played Telestrations before you really should.  It is hilarious.

Michael worked really hard at telling Adam to not knock over the stack of Jenga blocks.  He actually did surprisingly well.

Another tradition is to act out the Nativity story.  The brothers were the wise men (naturally).

Whitney decided to be the angel.  Rachel was a shepherd and Megan felt sick and didn't participate.  I think our acting gets better and better as we add more characters.  This time we had a Elizabeth, that was cool.

And playing the candy bar game.  If you roll a 7, 11, or doubles you get to pick a candy bar or steal one from someone.  The girls were very lucky and got lots of candy this year.

We also started a new tradition this year.  Kylee and Chas decided to teach us how to cook some Chinese food.  They were in China for many months and were taught by some locals.  This Christmas Eve dinner was delicious.  Thanks guys!

And my favorite tradition.  You cannot really tell from this picture but we were working on our presents to Jesus.  Christmas is so commercialized; it is nice to be able to try to give something back.  This is one tradition that I will definitely be keeping forever.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun.  Stay tuned for more Christmas pictures coming soon.

Time to Decorate

It was great to have almost all my siblings together at my parents house (my sister Kaitlin is on her mission and was the only one absent).  My mom was able to squeeze a lot of fun Christmas traditions into those few days.

One tradition that has been recently added was to decorate gingerbread men.  Just ignore the fact that the knife that was going to be dipped into the frosting was already in Megan's mouth.

Everyone got into the action and helped decorate some cookies.  Rachel was my decorating queen.  I think she proudly decorated about 10 of them (and didn't want anyone else to eat them).

Adam gets a little help from Uncle Chas.

Then it was time to decorate the Christmas tree.  Will turned on some Christmas music and we all got down to business.  There are a lot of old handmade kid ornaments.

My brothers Michael and Zach worked together to try to get the little angel to the top of the tree.  I think a hanger was involved.  I thought about buying a bigger tree topper this year but the two inch angel is a tradition.

We put paint into some empty glass ornaments and made them all pretty inside.

Megan picked her favorite colors - pink and purple.  She is my all girl.

It was fun decorating the house and getting everything ready for Christmas.

Pre-Christmas Activities

Happy New Year!  I know I am behind, but I thought I would post a few pictures of some of our pre-Christmas activities.  We had a fun and busy December.

Hermiston has a tree-lighting ceremony at the beginning of December.  It was a fun activity; here Whitney and Megan sit in Santa's sleigh.  This was before the big guy showed up and you were lucky to get near him.

We got to decorate cookies at the event.  Thankfully, there were lots of portable heaters and a roaring fire because it was really cold.  The tree was big and beautiful - quite the impressive sight.

The next night was our ward Christmas party.  We were a little early so it looks empty but there were about 250 people.  I liked the little papers that were on the tables for those of us waiting.  A neat idea was to make a Christmas wish list for Santa and then the kids could drop it in Mrs. Claus' basket as they went up to see Santa.

Adam had no problem with Santa.  He was just happy to get a bag of candy.

This was an incredible church event done by another church in Hermiston.  It was a re-enactment of the Nativity story and it was incredible.  There were people in costume and animals and it felt very real.  Here we are at the Bethlehem market where lots of people were shouting to sell their wares.

This was the part of the angel that came to the shepherds.  It was just amazing.  I hope my kids got to enjoy the experience and feel a little more like what Mary and Joseph would have felt.  Afterwards, there was hot chocolate and cookies.  We will definitely be going back.

The girls decided to make their own Family Home Evening Christmas treats.  They did not want any of my help.  So without any assistance they decided how much flour and cocoa powder and little bits of candy to put in.  I did have to make one suggestion at the end because the girls didn't have any oil or eggs so I recommended those.

Then they added frosting and sprinkles.  These were quite interesting. I think Will and I should get bonus parent points for eating our whole cupcake after FHE that night.

And before Christmas we got some snow - way too much snow in my opinion.  We ended up with like six inches on the ground.  So we went out and played.  Poor Adam had to stay inside.  He stayed right by the sliding glass door and laughed whenever anyone threw a snowball at him.

It isn't Christmas without some crafts.  So the girls made some colorful snowflakes and decorated our house with them.

And here is one of our elves on the shelf.  They come out every December and get into all kinds of mischief.  My favorite was probably when one elf wrapped the other one up in paper towels, but I forgot to get a picture.  Oh well.  They are gone now but I'm sure will be back next year.

Anyway, now you know some of our activities leading up to Christmas.  Stay tuned for our Pasco activities.  We did a lot of fun things with my family.

A Frozen Party

I still don't understand the huge excitement over the movie Frozen.  I thought it was cute and fine but Rachel thinks it is amazing.  So she wanted a Frozen party for her birthday this year.  Of course, I went to Pinterest to come up with some ideas for such a party.

First we decorated bags and colored pictures of people from Frozen.

We had a special treasure hunt.  Instead of regular clues we used the songs from Frozen.  For example, one clue was "Love is an open _______".  The girls all knew their songs really well.

The treasure hunt led to some chocolate.  One of the songs says "I'm gonna stuff some __________ in my face".  The babies really wanted the chocolate also.

Then we played snowball toss.  It was really ping pong balls and the kids took turns throwing into the cups which each had a picture of someone from the movie.  Elsa was worth the most points.  The bad prince was worth the least.

Then it was time to play Pin the Nose on Olaf.  Rachel won and got a little necklace prize.

We made Olaf faces out of popsicle sticks.

Our last activity was to make a princess wand.  Thanks go to my mom for being the hot glue queen for the day.

Then it was time to open presents.  Rachel got some Frozen puzzles and candy and a barbie and other good things.

Instead of cake we made snowman donuts.  You can almost tell that that is what they are making.

Adam trying a special Frozen popsicle.

And look at the happy birthday girl.  It is hard to believe that she is five years old.
What a fun day we had.

Adam's First Birthday

My baby turned one.  How did that happen?  They keep growing when we aren't looking, I'm sure.  We celebrated Adam's birthday at my parents house because it was the day after Thanksgiving.

We made brownies in the morning.  Everyone wanted to help.

Even Adam got a second to stir.  I was only going to let him stir long enough for me to get a picture and he managed to make a mess and leave a brownie splatter on his cheek.  Isn't he adorable?

I gave Adam a little ribbon that said birthday boy but that didn't last.

Time to open presents.  Adam got really into the unwrapping.

The girls watched  very closely to see what he would get.

This little baby 'tablet' was a hit.  Adam has even had a little bit of time playing with it.

Blowing out the candle with help from Will.  Adam started crying when it got all dark.

But was quickly pacified with yummy brownie and ice cream.

My cute boy is so grown up now.  Happy Birthday Adam!